Prospects

An iconic billboard in the quintessential boom city of Shenzhen features Deng’s famous statement that China's “basic line will not waver for 100 years.” If Deng was right, we are less than one-third of the way into the era of “reform and opening.” But four challenges identified by Premier Wen Jiabao in 2010, that growth becomes “unbalanced, unstable, uncoordinated, or unsustainable,” threaten the boom. The key to balance lies in increasing the consumer share of GDP, allowing China to create a modern consumer economy. Stability will depend on the government's ability to address grievances as the gap between winners and losers widens. Coordination is the great test facing the ruling Communist Party, of whether it can manage the politics of growth without fundamental changes to the system. Sustainability is an issue that has global implications, as citizens of a warming planet watch anxiously to see if China is successful in greening the boom. The fifth great challenge, left out by Premier Wen, may be the external one: whether the world is successful in making room for China.

China Still Has Many Places to Develop

China is a Maturing Dancer

Reform Transformed the Countryside

US and China Are in the Same Boat

China is Like a Raft in Category 5 White Water

Jiang Jianjun

Mayor, Guanghan, Sichuan Province

Jiang Jianjun was born in Mianzhu, Sichuan Province in 1968. She began working in 1985 and in 1990 she joined the Communist Party. Jiang became mayor of the city of Guanghan in Sichuan Province in 2002 and is currently in her second term. She also serves as the vice party secretary of Guanghan.

Deng Xiaoping said that the policies of the Reform and Opening would not change within 100 years. It has only been 30 years up to this point. I believe that after at least this 100 years has passed, we can again discuss future development. I am confident that things are only going to get better and better, because so long as a person's lifestyle or regime has reached a certain level, it is impossible to make them accept anything less. If people normally eat good food at dinner and you want to make them regress to a very basic lifestyle, no person will be willing to do this, to say nothing of a whole country. I think the reform and opening policy is correct and is really consistent with China's present and future development. It also is consistent with the people’s will and the trend of world economic development. I became Mayor in late 2002. Since 2002, our local fiscal revenue has gone up 337% and the per capita incomes of urban and rural residents have increased by 49.8% and 67.6% respectively. There is no way that this trend of development could be stopped by whomever is Mayor. Because it has already embedded itself deeply in the hearts of the people: If you don't develop, you will become backwards. If you don't work hard, you will fall behind the others. So, China has already created a development situation where people are eager to develop and afraid to be left behind. At the same time, we are very aware of environmental problems. We cannot sacrifice the interests of future generations for economic development today. Every year, we, in accordance with the developmental goals and assessment criteria of the central government and Sichuan Province, scientifically plan the design of our industrial development in order to instructively motivate sensible layouts for enterprises, in order to mitigate the risk of any pollution that may be created by the development of these enterprises harming future generations. Environmental performance has been directly integrated into the criteria for evaluating the performance of a mayor. If any serious environmental incident occurred, I would absolutely be the first person to be removed from my post. I bear the utmost responsibility for protecting the environment in our city. Overall, we recognized that a win-win situation is essential to our development. I have confidence, and 590,000 citizens have confidence, in the future of reform and opening in our country.